The POLIBIENESTAR Research Institute celebrates its tenth anniversary with more than 55 million euros raised for research

The Research Institute for Social Welfare Policy Research (POLIBIENESTAR) of the University of Valencia (UV) celebrates this September the tenth anniversary of the centre, an anniversary that was to be celebrated in 2020, but whose celebration has been postponed to this month due to the COVID-19 pandemic. During the period between 2010 and 2022, the centre – in which 61 researchers from the University work – has obtained more than 55 million euros for research through 107 projects.

The commemorative events have taken place in the framework of European projects, conferences and activities of coexistence of the different units integrated in the institute, both from the UV and other institutions. Among these events, on 9 September, Jorge Garcés, director of POLIBIENESTAR, was awarded an honorary doctorate by the Universitat Politècnica de València. On 8 September, the tenth anniversary commemorative event was held in the Assembly Hall of the Faculty of Social Sciences, with almost a hundred people in attendance, and on 10 September, the research institute team held a Teambuilding activity at l’Albufera.

In these ten years, the Institute has become a benchmark in Social Science research, especially in the study and transfer of European public welfare policies. It is at the forefront of international research, where teams from the technical and social sciences collaborate in an interdisciplinary way. The result is hundreds of reports, policy recommendations, books and academic articles, with a powerful contribution to the scientific community and society through platforms, standards, indicators, apps and algorithmic applications.

Since 2010, POLIBIENESTAR has been coordinating European projects with funding that has reached more than 55 million euros, obtained through 107 projects assigned to the institute. The Institute employs 61 researchers from eleven departments of the UV, who are integrated in research groups such as LabPsiTec, InnoMark or ScienceFlows, in collaboration with the UCC+i of the UV.

The POLIBIENESTAR España research team has more than 120 experts, as, together with the UV team, research staff from other institutions also collaborate, forming part of the associated units: Universitat Jaume I de Castelló, Universidad de Burgos, Universidad de Castilla-La Mancha, Universidad de Murcia, Universidad de Extremadura, Universidad Politécnica de Madrid, Universidad del País Vasco, Universitat Politècnica de València, Universidad de Concepción in Chile, Universidad de Guelph in Canada and Universidad Autónoma de Encarnación in Paraguay.

According to Jorge Garcés, “we have consolidated a crossbreeding between the Social Sciences and the Technical Sciences without losing rigour or independence; we identify ourselves as a forum for thought and creativity, where professionals in social work, sociology, mathematics, pedagogy, engineering, psychology, economics, medicine, architecture, journalism, law and political science research collaboratively. We enjoy the pleasure of learning, discussing and arguing in research from a kaleidoscopic perspective, training the future generation of researchers and researchers”.

Polibienestar is a research institute belonging to the University of Valencia, whose mission is to improve social welfare and the quality of life of society through interdisciplinary and socio-technical research. Its director, Jorge Garcés-Ferrer, is Professor of Social Policy at the University of Valencia and Prince of Asturias Professor at Georgetown University (Washington DC, USA).

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